Education & City Transformation

Waiting for Superman is an exciting new movie that's coming out telling the story of America's struggle within education. America is #1 in producing confident kids, but #25 in Math! Many of our schools across our country have turned into drop out factories and once a student drops out they are 8 times more likely to go to prison.

As a Pastor who cares for the city, I encourage all to consider how they can invest into public schools in their own cities. I have personally witnessed the power and transformation of good families and churches working to bring about change in bad schools.

In my own high school back in Little Rock, AR several churches and families came together to invest their time and resources into a poorly performing, gang infested, drug hub high school. The result was nothing less than total transformation over 5 years. It soon became a highly performing educational opportunity for our students of our community.

I dream of Imago Dei being a church that seeks the good of the city, partnering with others to invest in schools for future generations. Not simply being a church that declares the gospel on Sunday morning's from the pulpit but a church that demonstrates the gospel from the pews - people actively engaged in their communities, serving the needs of the city for the good of the city.

Serve the City: incarnational impulses

Our heart behind the church, is to see city renewal and churches coming together to bless their communities. Imago Dei doesn't want to be known simply for what we say, but what we do as well! We want to incarnate hope for those in need. We understand that our actions often speak louder than our words. We are a church that wants to be known as the people of God caring and connected to their communities. One of the best ways we can initially serve as a church is to invest in the lives of others through Apartment Life.

Many of the leaders at Imago Dei will be what we call "Tent Makers" in our transition to Phoenix. These are Pastors that have another job outside of the church to help cover the costs of living and their ministry. In fact, throughout the New Testament we find many of the disciples and apostles working part time jobs in addition to their full time ministries. Specifically we find that the Apostle Paul was a tent maker himself (Acts 18:3). He made tents to offset the support he received from others while he continued to preach and disciple leaders so that they could continually establish churches throughout Europe and Asia.

Our "Tent Making" will be to serve as a CARES TEAM for our apartment Complex. We will basically serve as a social coordinator for the apartment, connecting with new and old residents, to cultivate community and bring more life to the complex.

There are many ways people and churches can serve the city, In fact one of our partner churches has led the way in city renewal and service with doing what they call a SHARE FEST each year! These are the kinds of works we hope to see happen one day as well.

Imagine if...

Ordinary citizens started to ask "How can I serve for the good of my community?"

everyday people started to see themselves as community leaders in their neighborhoods, apartments, schools and workplaces?

churches started to ask "How can we serve the city?" How can we rally and resource together to collectively bless, transform and renew our communities with acts of service?

What would the reputation of the church be then?

We at imago dei are taking one step forward in this direction by working with Apartment Life, where are you wanting to make a difference?